Ludvig Sylow (6 October 1861 – 20 February 1933) was a Danish

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

executive, who was the fifth chairman of the Danish Football Association from 1911 to 1918. He was also a member of

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

's founding board of directors.

Early life

Ludvig Sylow was born on 6 October 1861 as the son of a

mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a Municipal corporation, municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilitie ...

. After a brief stint at the

Korsør Korsør is a town in Zealand (Denmark), Zealand, Denmark. It is located in Slagelse Municipality. Until 2007 Korsør was the seat of Korsør Municipality. The town is located west of Slagelse, north-west of Skælskør and connects to Nyborg thr ...

Realskole, Sylow attended the Sorø Academy in 1877, where he helped to introduce football in 1878. Later that year, he graduated after taking a maths and science exam and was then employed by the Post and

Telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

Service. As a result of this, Sylow was moved to

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

and advanced to mailroom clerk in 1886, and became a post inspector in 1914. Shortly after he moved to Copenhagen in 1879, Sylow became associated with

Kjøbenhavns Boldklub Kjøbenhavns Boldklub (known simply as KB) was a Danish professional multi-sports club based in Copenhagen. The club was founded on 26 April 1876 on the grassy fields in outer Copenhagen which later became Fælledparken. Tennis has been played s ...

(KB), for whom he played several first-team matches in football,

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

, and was the captain of KB's cricket match team for many years.

Sports career

Over time he became heavily involved in the organizational work at the club, and in the mid-1880s, when KB took the initiative to look at the different forms of football and their laws, Sylow was one of its main promoters. In 1886, Sylow, together with Frederik Markmann, Holger Forchhammer, and E. Wescher, translated the English association rules into Danish, so from then on rules such as offside and "hand on the ball" were used in Danish football. These rules were first used in a match the following year, in 1887. Prior to this, the matches would be played with a mixture of rugby and football rules, so this translation was a big step in the development of football in Denmark. Sylow was the chairman of KB twice, first in 1887, but his stint only lasted a year, and then he was elected chairman again in 1901 and this time he sat in the post for five years. In 1904, Sylow was the Danish representative in the assembly that founded the world organization ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' (

), where he was elected the assistant of FIFA's first-ever General Secretary Louis Muhlinghaus. In 1911 he ran for the presidential election in the Danish Football Union (DBU) and won, replacing Albert Albertsen as chairman of the country's football association, sat in the post until 1918, and was replaced by Louis Østrup. Sylow bequeathed all his earthly possessions to KB. In 1914 was appointed Knight of the Dannebrog.

Death

Sylow died in Vejle on 20 February 1933, at the age of 71.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sylow, Ludvig 1861 births 1933 deaths Danish football chairmen and investors Danish football referees Sportspeople from Copenhagen People educated at Sorø Academy